Rushdie Risks Protest If He Visits India, Cleric Says
A powerful Muslim cleric warned Friday of violent protests against any visit to India by Bombay-born British author Salman Rushdie, whose novel “The Satanic Verses” angered Muslims around the world.
India, which has a sizable Muslim minority and was the first to ban “The Satanic Verses,” granted Rushdie a visa Wednesday for the first time since the 1980s. Rushdie could visit India in two or three months, his lawyer, Vijay Shankardas, was quoted as saying in London.
Syed Ahmed Bukhari, a leading cleric at New Delhi’s Jama Masjid, the country’s biggest mosque, said Rushdie would be greeted with violent protests.
“We will follow him from the moment he lands at the airport to wherever he makes his speeches and, if necessary, sacrifice our lives for Islam,” Bukhari thundered during Friday prayers in New Delhi before a crowd of thousands. “The punishment for blasphemy is death.”
Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh, who is visiting London, told the Indian Express newspaper that “all security will be provided” to Rushdie by the Indian government.
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